Salivary glands tumours: a retrospective study of 454 patients

AIM: Salivary glands tumors constitute a highly heterogeneous group in human oncological pathology. They show different clinical, epidemiological, histopathological and evolutionary characteristics. METHODS: In this paper we have analysed their epidemiological aspects in 454 patients with salivary glands tumors surgically treated at the Maxillofacial Surgical Unit of the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria ''Ospedali Riuniti Umberto I-G.M. Lancisi-G. Salesi'', Ancona, Italy, from 1990 to 2002, to evaluate the incidence of the different types of neoplasia and their age and sex distribution. RESULTS:Our results show that 63.22% of salivary glands tumors occur in the parotid gland, with a predominance of benign tumours, pleomorphic adenoma being the most prevalent histological type. A higher prevalence was observed in the female sex. CONCLUSIONS: Malignant tumors were more common in the elderly than in young patients and the most common histological types were mucoepidermoid carcinoma and adenoid cystic carcinoma.